Month

July 2016

At the outset of the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes penned a remarkable economic prognostication: that despite the ominous storm that was then enfolding the world, mankind was in fact on the brink of solving “the economic problem” — that is, the quest for daily subsistence.

The world of his grandchildren — the world of those of us living today — would, “for the first time…be faced with [mankind’s] real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.”

As automation technologies such as machine learning and robotics play an increasingly great role in everyday life, their potential effect on the workplace has, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. The discussion tends toward a Manichean guessing game: which jobs will or won’t be replaced by machines?

In fact, as our research has begun to show, the story is more nuanced. While automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade, it will affect portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of work they entail…

Since it was founded in 2011, what Magic Leap has been working on has been shrouded in mystery. An augmented reality company that promises to do no less than change the world, the Florida-based startup and Google cash bucket has given some pretty amazing demonstrations. On Thursday at the Games for Change festival in New York City, Magic Leap’s Graeme Devine shared with an audience of developers and enthusiasts of “serious gaming” his predictions for how augmented reality will be integrated into regular peoples’ private lives — and gave everyone just a bit more insight into what will happen when the media starts integrating with reality…